In October 2010, it was reported that Mel Gibson would be making a cameo appearance in The Hangover Part II.
The What Women Want star was said to have been cast as a tattoo artist in the film, which was scheduled for release the following year. Around that same time, Zach Galifianakis, who’d starred in the previous Hangover movie, told Scott Aukerman of Comedy Death-Ray Radio that he was in the middle of a “deep protest” with the makers of a film he was working on. Naturally, many assumed Galifianakis’s issue had something to do with Gibson.
A couple of days after the Gibson announcement, Hangover director Todd Phillips revealed that Gibson was no longer going to be involved with the production. “I thought Mel would have been great in the movie and I had the full backing of [Warner Bros. president] Jeff Robinov and his team,” Phillips explained.
“But I realize filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and this decision ultimately did not have the full support of my entire cast and crew.” Who, specifically, was against Gibson’s casting remains unclear.
The Strange Reason ‘The Hangover Part II’ Replaced Mel Gibson With Liam Neeson, Then Cut Him Too
But Gibson wasn’t the only A-lister who ended up getting dropped from the highly anticipated sequel. Liam Neeson was hired to play the tattoo artist almost immediately after Gibson was let go. Neeson told Daily Variety that he was a fan of the original Hangover and was invited to take part in the next one by his A-Team co-star Bradley Cooper. His cameo was expected to take just one day to shoot.
However, while editing the movie, Phillips decided to cut the scene after Neeson’s cameo, which messed with the story a bit. Unfortunately, Neeson wasn’t available for the reshoots necessary to fix things because he was in London filming Clash of the Titans. As a result, Nick Cassavetes had to step in at the last minute to get the scene completed.
You can check out the sequence in question for yourself above.
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